One night after some bad luck, bad personnel decisions, and a solid young hockey team dealt your Calgary Flames their second loss out of three games on their current road swing, the boys in white will do it all over again 24 hours later as they sled into Denver for a date with the equally young and equally good Colorado Avalanche.

While this may not be the division rival it once was, it's still a contest with some intrigue, which I'm sure I will mention at some point over the course of this FGD, and thusly convince you in the end that it is a hockey game you should watch.

Because that's what we're here for in the end, isn't it? How else are you going to spend your Friday night? In the company of your friends and loved ones in delightful social situations that one day you'll look back upon fondly? YEAH RIGHT BUDDY. It's hockey night, and that's all that matters in your otherwise devoid of meaning "life".

The Flames of Calgary and Certainly not Atlanta

Lineups, as always, provided to us by our besties over at Daily Faceoff. Catch the fever!

Cammalleri - Colborne - Galiardi

Reinhart - Stajan - Jones

Baertschi - Monahan - Hudler

(sigh) Jackman - Backlund - McGrattan

Butler - Brodie

Wideman - Russell

Smith - O'Brien

RAMO

So, I mean obviously the thing to talk about is Sven being back in the lineup, which is a weird thing to have to be a topic seeing as the fact that he was out of the lineup was a dumb thing, and you'd figure at this level teams would stop doing dumb things, but Bob Hartley seems to love doing dumb things so here we are.

It is definitely good that the Sven and the Svean get reunited tonight, as Sven gets to check back in after being healthy scratch'd TWICE SOMEHOW, and Monahan just doesn't seem to have the same jump when Baertschi isn't on his wing. But I feel like Sven is going to be under somewhat of a microscope tonight, from the fans but also his idiot coaching staff, and if he doesn't perform at some nominal level that may be almost unrealistic to expect out of him, and if Tim Jackman keeps scoring at the clip he's doing it (glacially), it could mean more time over in yonder pressbox for the Svensational one.

Speaking of dumb, 4th line. Goddamn, how many times are they going to go back to that well? There are no longer any words for it, just exaseperrated noises, which I won't transcribe to you here yet, but maybe later depending on how this game goes.

Reinhart on the second line. I really don't understand what the fans and the coaches see in this guy (kinda think the name has something to do with it because that never happens...). He's not a bad player and he's certainly a better option than the facepunch twins, but even on this team I don't see him as a Top 6 forward, yet here we are. This is, however, a player I believe is more than capable of proving me wrong, so let's see if he does that tonight. If not, hey, let's call up Corban Knight sometime real soon, okey doke?

Karri Ramo checks back in, and that's good, because he gets to prove one more time that this team hates him for no good reason. True he's rocking an .888 sv% this year, and that's not great, but it seems like he has less leash on this team than Reto Berra and also somehow Joey MacDonald, neither of whom have been very good themselves. A good start tonight would get him trending back towards being the starting goalie maybe some of us believed he could have been, sorta, before the season began.

The Avalanche of Colorado and Certainly Not Quebec

Again, lineup courtesy of Daily Faceoff, who you can follow on twitter, and should.

Landeskog - Statsny - McGinn

O'Reilly - Duchene - Parenteau

Mitchell - MacKinnon - Talbot

McLeod - Cliche - Bordeleau

Johnson - Hejda

Benoit - Sarich

Holden - Guenin

Varlamov (!)

Funny how success can let your team get away with doing some of the exact same things a less, uh, good team gets criticized for without anyone really knowing they're actually doing it.

For example, with all the talk in Calgary this year surrounding Sean Monahan and whether or not he should have gone back to the OHL instead of burning a year of his ELC (the answer is still yes), the same approach could have been taken for Nathan MacKinnon. Granted, that was never a discussion, and it was very evident that the first overall pick was good enough to play in the NHL even before camp broke. But here we see Patrick Roy playing him on the third line with some VERY underwhelming linemates, and you have to wonder how much he's gaining experience wise out of this first season in Denver. But The Avs are 12-2, so no one really seems to be asking that question.

You can also get away with dressing two facepunchers on your fourth line and no one seems to notice. Cody McLeod DOES bring a degree more to the Avs than say Top 6 forward Tim Jackman does to the Flames, but he knows his role. He wears an A for it.

If there's a weakness to the Avs, it is on the back end, where as you can see, Cory Sarich is in the Top 4, and no one knows who the rest of these guys are outside of Erik Johnson, who is a clown, and Jan Hejda, who, okay, I know nothing about Jan Hejda. How are these guys winning games??? Oh right, all the talent on the forward lines, that's a nice thing to have.

Semyon Varlamov gets another start for the Avs tonight, and I think we can all agree that's coocoo bananapants right now, even though he is netting them wins.

Playoff Implications

Players to Watch

I was going to have Alex Tanguay in this list, but seeing as the former Flames winger and guy we all at least kinda liked is out for two weeks with a sprained knee, so I'm going to assume he's going to be invisible tonight.

If you like the narrative of former players playing against their former clubs - and who doesn't? - boy have we got you covered tonight. David Jones, TJ Galiardi, and Shane O'Brien all once used to don those classic purple and blue nightmares of a jersey, while Cory Sarich and sorta Ryan O'Reilly are ex-Flames.

I just remembered the Ryan O'Reilly fiasco and got too angry to think about anything else.

Watch Sven. Everyone else will be. I predict he will be good because he is a good hockey player and it's funny how that works out, isn't it?

Conclusion

The Avs are good. They're proof that the Edmonton Oilers style rebuild works as long as you're not the Edmonton Oilers. And that means Calgary is in tough tonight, but hey, if they can beat the Chicago Blackhawks on the road, they can certainly beat the Avalanche.

Remember that the game is at 7 even with those damn time zones, which reminds us, hey, the team returns to the friendly confines of the Saddledome soon enough.

Cheer hard. Cheer for Sven. Cheer for Backlund. Do it hard because the team is doing everything it can to drive them out of twon and it's only a matter of time before we see them on good teams making Bob Hartley look (more) foolish.

Ol' Flooby offers nothing of any value to anyone. Follow him on twitter here.

Smid, well we just bigger on D and that is something we needed. Tells me that the Sieloff injury is longer term than we have been led to believe. Also tells me the rebuild seems to be on hold; oh well another season wasted.

The preference for Colborne is starting to become rather suspicious. Dude has done next to nothing in his last 5 games despite quality ice time and yet Hartley just keeps giving him chance after chance after chance.

Not mathematically eliminated from the playoffs yet?? Hmmmmm, guess thats enough rebuilding! Time to get back the the Calgary way and trade prospects for mediocrity....
Yeah, our goaltending is pretty good, we probably won't need this guy whos stopped every shot he's faced this year...
Hard to understand this one....

The preference for Colborne is starting to become rather suspicious. Dude has done next to nothing in his last 5 games despite quality ice time and yet Hartley just keeps giving him chance after chance after chance.

I think Hartley coaches on accident. Because all of sudden he starts using guys like Baertschi and Backlund and the are playing EXACTLY like they were before being demoted and benched but its working like it has before and the Flames look a lot more competitive.

- Smid is young and on a very cap-friendly deal. He's also a real live NHL calibre D-man who can slot into our top 4 until someone younger /better can push him out.

- Horak was very expendable as his skillset was duplicated by a number of other C's in the system

- The only part of the deal that bugs me is Brossoit for Roy. It bugs me because Brossoit looked like a steal who might actually play some day, whereas Roy's stock has been slipping since he was drafted. That said, Roy isn't terrible, and Calgary does have a range of goaltenders who have been advancing faster than Brossoit. Plus we have Gillies.

My math may be off because I'm not sure if I'm working with tonight's numbers, but I think Cammalleri is responsible for around 18% of the Flames total offense while having played only 9 of their 16 games this season.

haha funny. I wrote a blog today and one of the lines I wrote in the conclusion was almost uncannily the same as yours about Colorado. Only I said. "Where you buy defence that can play in the NHL. Well unless of course you’re Colorado and you just skate the puck down everyone’s throat until they can’t stop you anymore then who needs defence. m i rite? "

yeah sven plays but probably gets no PP time on a team 0/28 and no goals in 8 games so the Colborne can stand in front of the net. Opps I'm getting negative here,

Please someone explain to me how Jackman(yes he scored last night) and Mcg contribute to the rebuild and to the game tonight. Neither play PP or PK and they can't take a regular shift on a good night. I'm getting frustrated with the phony rebuild.

Why would Edmonton be in the position to be trading defenseman.... They must be blowing it up again. Smid was there only defender capable of shutting down anything. Prospects are Brossoit & Horak going other way. Gillies & Ortio make Brossoit expendable, but still I thought we were rebuilding.

Why would Edmonton be in the position to be trading defenseman.... They must be blowing it up again. Smid was there only defender capable of shutting down anything. Prospects are Brossoit & Horak going other way. Gillies & Ortio make Brossoit expendable, but still I thought we were rebuilding.

I think Smid has a very reasonable contract though... Actually don't mind it for that reason. Eberle to Philly seems crazy but those 6 million a year deals are not looking that good outside of Hall's. Something is brewing in Edmonton for sure.

"Granted, that was never a discussion, and it was very evident that the first overall pick was good enough to play in the NHL even before camp broke."

It's funny, because Monahan's underlying numbers are better than MacKinnon's across the board. And it really isn't even close.

I think BoL should write all the Game Day blogs.

On the trade: Well. That happened. Olivier Roy is a null pickup. He'll never play in the NHL (yes, it's a prediction/opinion. So sue me). I'll miss Horak, I was rooting for him (though you could sort of see this coming). I do like Smid though, which I know is an odd thing to say, and probably a very unpopular opinion, but whatever.

I have to say, though, this trade pretty much makes no sense at all for the Oilers. They needed to add dmen, not subtract them.

Well, whatever. Hopefully Smid gets paired with Brodie right off the bat here, so TJ has, you know, an actual defense partner. When Giordano comes back, things likely get interesting... I have no idea what to expect, but I hope it doesn't involve TJ getting sent to the third pair, because that's dumb.

And hopefully my opinion of Smid isn't weirdly skewed in the wrong direction for no apparent reason.

Not totally a fan of the trade to be honest. I thought Laurent Brossoit was on a promising path that's the main reason why. I figured if Gillies doesn't pan out he'd be a good backup plan, just another good prospect goaltender to have in the fold. In return we get Roy, who's numbers look rather underwhelming. Horak's been okay but it's true that we'd kind of stockpiled centres in a similar position such as Knight and J.C. I don't even know why J.C. is on the 1st line. He should probably be in the AHL or perhaps on the third or fourth line.. Just my thoughts. I'd also like to have a look at Knight and see where he's at in his developmentI figured maybe one would be on the move. Smid will at least help fill a bit of the void left by Giordano's injury, I suppose. Maybe he's alright, it's hard to tell though because he played for the Oilers...

After this season, Smid still has three more years at $3.5 million. The fact they weren't playing Horak as a regular probably meant he was expendable. Smid is the only NHLer in this trade, 474 games under his belt.

Like your post. Agree.
After last night Smid will look like a defenceman.
BofL is out to lunch on Monahan. Is he going to get better at NHL faceoffs in the OHL- NO; is he going to get stronger on the puck against boys in OHL instead of men in the NHL - NO. So BofL why care about the entry level contract?
Horak had his chance. That's the whole point of this year's rebuild. Decide who is good enough.
With Brossoit gone we need an ECHL goalie.